Twins
by shiiki
Summary: Annabeth and Percy get their first ultrasound ... and a little surprise.


**Summary** : Annabeth and Percy get their first ultrasound ... and a little surprise.

 **A/N** : This was for a request from **heyimafangirl** , who wanted ' _i was wondering if you can make another part [to CoL] where percy pops the question and him and annabeth and all their friends plan the wedding and they have twins, a boy and girl!_ ' I already did _The Best Underwater Proposal_ previously, so that covers popping the question, and then I did this one on tumblr in January, but since I finally wrote _Wedding Planning_ , here is this one to join it!

Although its ostensibly in the _CoL_ universe, it pretty much stands alone, as the only references to _CoL_ are super minor.

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 **Twins**

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'How about Felix?' Percy says. 'Piper said it means "lucky."' He runs his hands over the curve of Annabeth's belly, which is expanding rapidly by the day. Sometimes she thinks it's a bit alarming, the rate at which her son or daughter is growing. If this is the size of her at three months, what is she going to look like at six, or even nine?

(Piper, with the smug superiority of someone who's been there, done that, laughs and says it's normal, but that's easy for her to say. Annabeth swears Piper was nowhere near as big when she was carrying her son. Then again, that could just be a gift from Aphrodite.)

Percy loves it, though. He can't seem to keep his hands of her burgeoning belly, whispering to it and trying on two dozen names a day for size. She's never seen him this excited, not even when he and Tyson built that underwater theme park for Estelle.

'She could be Felicity,' Annabeth counters.

Percy makes a face. 'Another girls' name?'

'Well, you keep coming up with boys' names. We don't know that he's a boy.'

'I think he is.'

Annabeth makes an impatient noise in the back of her throat. 'We ought to be prepared for both eventualities,' she reminds him. 'At least until we get the ultrasound.' She looks at her watch, then at the door to Will's office. There's a carving of Eileithyia below the name plate that says Dr Solace, OB-GYN. It's certainly appropriate—you definitely want the goddess of childbirth on your side when you're expecting—but it makes Annabeth a little uneasy. Eileithyia also delivers rebirthed souls, fresh from the Lethe, into new babies sometimes.

Annabeth's had more than enough to do with the Curse of Lethe to last ten lifetimes.

'Asher?' Percy suggests.

She gives him a look and pushes his hands off her stomach. 'Why are you so dead set on having a boy, anyway? What's wrong with girls?'

Percy winces at her tone. 'Nothing. Girls are perfect. Girls are amazing. I love girls. I mean—'

'Honestly, Seaweed Brain …'

'I love _this_ girl,' he amends, pushing one loose curl behind her ear. 'It's just …' He bites his lip and mumbles something.

'What?'

'What if I screw up, with a girl? I mean, look at how much I messed up with you, and I put my mom through hell over the years, and—well, at least with a boy, I sorta know what to expect.'

'Oh, Percy.' She swallows through the lump in her throat. She can't deny that the last twenty years of loving him has been painful. Her heart's pretty much been put through the wringer by now, what with crazy quests and deadly prophecies and vengeful monsters … but none of that was ever _Percy's_ fault, and they both know it.

Well, most of the time he knows it. But expecting a baby tends to bring up a lot of past insecurities. Annabeth herself can't quite shake the nightmares about things going wrong, being unable to protect this tiny seed of life blossoming inside her, that old, persistent phobia of never being good enough.

But she knows that even with all the tears and heartache, she'd do it all over again as long as it means she gets to have Percy with her forever. And it will be the same, whatever their future with this new baby brings.

She links her hand through Percy's so that the twin wedding bands on their fingers interlock—each with half an infinity symbol that forms the full thing when they connect. 'We're going to be fine, Percy.' She rests both their hands over her belly. ' _They're_ going to be fine, whichever one they are. Because whatever crap we messed up, you and I, we always picked up the pieces and put them back together.'

As if to back her up, their baby stirs inside her, pressing up against the wall of her abdomen. Percy's eyes widen a little.

'See?' she says. 'They agree with me.' Gods, she loves the kid already.

'Smart kid.' Percy bends forward and whispers conspiratorially, 'Never bet against your mom, okay?'

The door opens and Will's head pops out. 'Annabeth, Percy—come on in.'

Percy holds her hand as Will sets up the ultrasound. His eyes are shining as he stares at the blobby shapes forming on the computer screen. Will runs the ultrasound transducer over her skin, and there it is—the spindly limbs, the round head of their child.

'Wow,' Percy breathes. 'Oh wow.'

'Looking good,' Will says. 'Now let's see—' He moves the transducer.

Annabeth's heart nearly stops when another round head comes into view.

'What's that?' Percy demands. 'Is that … oh gods, something's wrong, isn' it? Why does he have two heads?'

Will laughs. 'Well, it's unexpected, I'll give you that. But no, nothing's _wrong._ ' He removes the transducer and types a few commands into his ultrasound computer. The image zooms out. This time, the picture shows clearly two heads, but also two tiny bodies curled together, like the two halves of her infinity wedding band.

 _Twins._

'Congratulations,' Will says, pointing just below the umbilical cord connecting her two— _two_ —babies. One of them has an extra appendage there; the other doesn't. 'A boy _and_ a girl.'

Well. She said they should plan for either eventuality, but she'd kind of failed to plan for _this_ possibility. The Fates still had a hidden card up their sleeves after all.

'I guess we'll need both names after all,' she says faintly.

Percy kisses her. 'I guess we do.'

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 **A/N** : While we're on the topic of requests ... I got some questions about those, so I just wanted to say that I'm not officially putting out a call or anything. (That said, I do have a special spot for the few of you who have championed my stories so avidly every week-you know who you are! So if there's something you have a burning desire to see, I'm always happy to put it on the backburner just for you. Just, you know, remember I'm only human and real life always takes precedence.)

I have thought a bit about how to do this stuff better (chatting with my readers, taking requests and stuff like that) rather than bore you with super long A/N's which may be missed anyway. So I thought of starting a forum and maybe it's a terrible idea, but let's just see how it goes. It's over here: just put forum/PJO-discussion-forum/211183/ after the fanfiction dot net url (there's also a link on my profile) and if you want to come by and see what I'm working on, ask specific questions about fic, send in requests (though fair warning—I'm quite swamped up to maybe May both with RL and also wanting to finish fic that's already, you know, started and been on the backburner for ages), or anything at all.

Hope to see some of you around! I promise I don't bite. And I'll try and keep the pity party this week to a minimum. :)


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